Social and Religious Differences between French and English

The relationship between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians has always been a big problem. The French colony New France was founded in Canada in the early 1600s. The French were Catholics in their religion, they spoke French and their culture was based on French culture. The French influence expanded in the 1700th and 1800th century into western Canada and down to Louisiana. The expansion happened as explorers and missionaries travelled along the rivers. This spread of French influence and culture met resistance from the British colonies, especially those from New England because of the conflict between France and England nations which had existed since the early settlement of North America. The conflict was also provoked by a series of wars between France and England as they fought over the power in Europe. In the years 1756-63 the Seven-Years-war took place. In the war France and England fought eachother, and one of the reasons for the war was the English irritation over France’s expansion in Canada. During the war British troops conquered New France.

The English victory of the war and the power was among other reasons caused by religious differences between the French and the English. The English were Protestants and the French Catholics. One big difference in the legislation between these two branches of the Christianity was the system of how to share the inheritance. When a farther died in a Catholic family the land which the family owned, would be shared in equal parts, one for each son. In that way the land for each family would be smaller and smaller after every generation. The Catholics were not allowed to use prevention so the families were very big, and therefore the land became smaller dangerously fast. This resulted in a lot of socials problems when the families’ land got too small to supply the families with foodstuffs.

The English on the other hand had a more steady system: when the father died the oldest son inherited the entire land. Then the younger sons were forced to sat out to find new land or take an education so they could work in other trades. In this way the English land didn’t get smaller and a lot of the English sons took an education. These different ways of dealing with the inheritance made a big social difference between Catholics and Protestants. The Protestants grew stronger than the Catholics and that gave them an advantage in the war. You could say the religious difference between the French and the English caused social differences with was an advantage for the English.
In Vancouver you don’t feel any struggle between English and French, but that is probably because there aren’t that much French people in western Canada. But we found out that nearly 50 per cent of the inhabitants of Quebec want Quebec to be a separated country. About ten years ago there was a plebiscite but there was exactly a majority for not dividing Quebec from the rest of Canada. So there are two big groups in Quebec: one group who want Quebec to be a separated country and one group against this opinion. This separation leads to struggle in the eastern Canada but seldom of the violent kind.